Written assignment 1#North American Literature IVMoreno, Mario group 32

The Iceberg Theory Hemingway.The ice-berg theory is the name given by Hemingway to the practice of expressing much by saying little. The author explains this simile to an ice-berg in the way that only one eighth of its mass is perceivable while the rest remains underwater. He argues that: if the writer is writing truly enough, [the reader] will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. In his short stories, the author uses various mechanisms which help the reader get an impression of what lies beneath the surface. In this essay, I will comment on how Hemingway achieves the ice-berg effect in his short stories focusing on the use of ellipsis in Hills Like White Elephants and The Killers.It is important to understand that this principle of verbal minimalism is shared by many authors of the period. Modernist literature offers a truly new approach to art. Simple language, ordinary themes, verbal minimalism and a certain detachment of the narrator, are some of the most characteristic features of modernist literature. Therefore, it is the characters rather than the narrator who move the story forward through the dialogue. Generally, the narrator seems to play the role of a passer-by who reports the events he witnesses. In this sense he does not add opinions and thus the reader constructs his own opinion mostly out of what the characters say. Perhaps the clearest use of ellipsis is found in Hills Like White Elephants. The characters seem to be arguing over an important issue, an operation, but there is no explicit mention about what operation it is. Many critics agree that there are some hints in the dialogue which point out that the operation they are referring to is an abortion. Phrases such as they havent taken it away or It isnt ours anymore are examples that support this interpretation. Nevertheless, the omission of what appears to be a key element to the story does not seem to stop the reader from getting the essence of the scene. Similar to other modernist artists, Hemingway does not seem particularly interested in creating closed plot for the story; rather he focuses on the presentation of a particular scene without needing to contextualise it very much or giving details about the characters backgrounds. In Hills like White Elephants the scene takes place at the bar of a train station while the couple is presumably waiting for the train. There appears to be an atmosphere of dispute between the man and the girl right off the beginning. This idea comes to mind when soon into the story the man says oh cut it out which suggests that their argument has been going on for a while. On the one hand, the man seems to want to talk about the issue in question, while the girl tries to avoid the subject. This can be interpreted in the way that the man insists that it is a simple operation, while the girl asks him to stop talking. This omission of information makes the reader wonder what is going on and in order to find out more he will have to focus on little details. For instance, the idea that the operation discussed is abortion is also derived from the fact that when the girl looks out of the window she sees the two sides of the valley: one brown and dry and another one green, which could illustrate the difference between bareness and fertility. This image can be connected to her situation given that she has to decide whether to have the operation or not and therefore she is in-between the two valleys or options. The use of this kind of image is what helps to portray the feelings of the characters. In both these two short stories Hemingway offers an almost undetectable narrator. The narrator avoids describing the characters; he does not give the reader any significant information about their personality nor their background. Occasionally, the narrator throw out some details about the characters which help the reader create his/her own picture about the scene but which do not seem very relevant to the story. For example, in the killers the narrator mentions twice that the two men who enter Henrys lunchroom are wearing gloves. Such details appear to be important, particularly in a short story; in this case the gloves could be associated to the idea that these men are professional killers and therefore do not want to leave fingerprints. Another way through which the author achieves this effect is by the dialogues of the characters. The dialogue contributes almost entirely to the perception of them. In other words, the narration is limited mostly to facts and actions, and thus the reader has to perceive the mood of the characters through their dialogue and the kinesis of the scene in order to create his/her interpretation. For instance, in Hills Like White Elephants we learn that the name of the girl is Jig because the American calls her by that name. Nonetheless, the narrative voice does not employ her name at any time in the story. By excluding the narrators point of view with regard to the characters and the nature of the different scenes, he allows the reader to construct an image of the story almost entirely out of the dialogue of the characters.All these techniques help the narrator to be detached from the scene and give the reader the possibility of perceiving things from different point of views that of the characters which is a central idea of modern literature. Another important concept is that of time also essential to this new way of presenting a story. Time in these stories is presented as a situational or transitory. In Hills like White Elephants, the man and the woman are in a train station, In The Killers characters are in a lunchroom: both these settings seem to reinforce the idea of a transitory time given that these are transitory places. Moreover, in both stories there is explicit reference to what time it is; how long the man and the woman wait for the train; how long the two men wait for Anderson and the way the characters look at the clock at different occasions. This contributes to the iceberg theory in the way that the stories only show what is going on at a particular time without making explicit references to previous events. Everything discussed occurs at a particular time.In conclusion, the concept of Iceberg Theory can certainly be identified in these two stories, as well as other typical characteristics of modern literature. Hemingway succeeds in saying much, or rather suggesting much, by saying little. The omission of information construct these stories in a new way, but it is important to understand that this new kind of narrator does not lead us towards an interpretation, rather he confuses us in an effort to create different perspectives.